Springfield Mayor Mike Houston is disputing a report that acting Corporation Counsel John Mehlick is stepping down due to a perceived conflict of interest.

Citing an anonymous source, WTAX-AM 1240 reported that the former associate judge decided to resign because he had presided over traffic cases in which Calvin Christian III was the defendant. The mayor has said Mehlick was instrumental in negotiating a settlement of Christian’s lawsuit over the destruction of police internal affairs records he had requested under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

The mayor’s office announced Mehlick’s resignation Wednesday, a day after he and Jon Gray Noll, an outside attorney representing the city in the lawsuit, told the city council they believed Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman shouldn’t be involved in settlement discussions because he is representing Christian in an ongoing traffic case.

Houston said Mehlick informed him during a private meeting last month that he intended to resign, effective Dec. 14. Mehlick submitted his letter of resignation that day as well, the mayor said Thursday.

“He had given me a resignation letter on Nov. 21, which was way before any of this came up,” Houston said.

City spokesman Nathan Mihelich on Wednesday told WTAX’s Ray Lytle that Mehlick handed in his resignation earlier that day.

“He offered it this morning,” Mihelich said. “The mayor, (executive assistant) Willis (Logan) and I were in a staff meeting in the mayor’s conference room, and the judge informed the three of us that, effective Dec. 14, he was going to be leaving the city.”

Houston said he and Mehlick kept the earlier conversation private because they didn’t want Mehlick’s impending departure to become public and possibly interfere with the settlement.

The idea was for the resignation to be announced after the city council approved the settlement, which would pay Christian and his attorneys more than $100,000 without requiring the city to admit liability. But a wrench was thrown in the gears when the city council decided not to vote on the proposal when it was up for emergency passage Tuesday night. Instead, they chose to delay the vote until Dec. 17.

Aldermen were informed of the outline of the settlement agreement during a Nov. 19 closed-door executive session.

Houston said Mehlick heard thousands of cases throughout his time on the bench. In that role, he was an impartial arbiter, responsible neither for bringing charges nor dismissing them.

The mayor said he was aware when Mehlick took the temporary job with the city in August that he had presided over cases in which Christian was the defendant.

“There is no conflict of interest,” he said. “He certainly remembered that Calvin Christian had appeared before him, but I don’t know that he would recall the specifics of any cases.”

Page 2 of 2 - Sangamon County Circuit Court records show Mehlick, who retired as head of the traffic and misdemeanor division in 2010, was assigned to four cases from 2008 to 2010 in which Christian was the defendant. Prosecutors dismissed the charges in two cases. Christian was given court supervision in 2008 after pleading guilty to disregarding a traffic light. In a fourth case, another judge signed the state’s motion to dismiss a charge of operating an uninsured vehicle.

Houston noted that, while working as a private attorney, Mehlick represented Sangamon County in lawsuits brought by people he had sentenced before he retired.

James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, pointed to a rule governing professional conduct for lawyers and judges that states, “a lawyer shall not represent anyone in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a judge.”

This rule does not preclude former judges from serving as attorneys in cases involving people who appeared before them in unrelated matters, Grogan said.

“It’s got to be really case specific,” he said. “When you leave the bench, you’re going to encounter, generally speaking, people you encountered as a judge.”